Child Asthma and Change in Elevated Depressive Symptoms Among Mothers of Children of a Birth Cohort from Quebec

Abstract

The authors examined the association between maternal reports of child asthma attacks since birth and occurrence of elevated maternal depressive symptoms at seventeen months postpartum in the present study. The modifying role of poverty in this association was also examined. Data from n = 1,696 mother-child dyads from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, a birth cohort of children born in 1998, were used. Maternal depressive symptoms were measured with an abridged and validated twelve-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Maternal reports of child asthma attacks since birth in relation to the occurrence of maternal depressive symptoms at 17 months postpartum and the potential modifying role of poverty were tested using multiple logistic regression models. When mothers reported child asthma attacks, those without elevated depressive symptoms at 5 months postpartum had lower odds of elevated depressive symptoms one year later (OR = 0.2, 95% CI: 0.1-0.7). Poverty was associated with increased odds of elevated maternal depressive symptoms (OR = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.5-3.9), without interacting with child asthma. Through this study, the authors suggest that in mothers without elevated symptoms at 5 months, reported child asthma attacks since birth did not contribute one year later to new occurrence of depressive symptoms.

The Chronicity of Depressive Symptoms in Mothers of Children With Asthma

“…For the mothers with no depressive symptoms at 5 months, child asthma attacks since birth did not contribute to new depressive symptoms 1 year later. Poverty, however, was linked to increased maternal depressive symptoms (Tu, Perreault, Séguin, & Gauvin, 2011). Our finding that asthma control was not predictive of depressive symptoms at any time point lends further support to our position that health status indictors are not necessarily the driving force of psychological symptoms in this caregiver population, rather daily "life" stress may be the major contributor to maternal depression.…”